Captain Cook’s Weather Records

Captain James Cook uncooks the weather books, as reported in the Courier Mail August 4, 2008. More than 6,000 Royal Navy logs dating from the 1600's have been surveyed by the UK Meteorological Office and other experts The Sun newspaper reports. The ships' logs, of Captain James Cook, Lord Nelson and thousands more like them who sailed the globe and recorded weather observations, have revealed that recent global warming is not so unusual after all. Maritime historian Sam Willis said: "From these records, scientists can build a detailed picture of past weather and climate". These on the spot records show the world went through a similar period of global warming in the 1730's that could not have been man-made. And freak storms like the ones experienced recently also occurred in the 1680's and 1690's which were the coldest decades in what is known as the Little Ice Age - so could not have been caused by global warming.

Cook sailed from Alaska to the Antarctic, and Nelson, who maintained his ships' logs himself, covered the Arctic, West Indies, south east Asia and Mediterranean. Geographer Dr Dennis Wheeler, of Sunderland University, said: "British archives contain more than 100,000 Royal Navy logbooks from around 1670 to 1850 alone. They are a stunning resource. Global warming is a reality, but our data shows climate science is complex. It is wrong to take particular events and link them to carbon dioxide emissions." Evidence from the many logs, which are still being studied, will be published in respected science journal Climatic Change.

Editorial Comment: Let's just say the old lesson to be learnt again here is that it is wiser to rely on the records of those who were there than the opinions of Politicians and Greens who were not, who proudly and ignorantly believe they live at the most important time in history and the observations they make are the only ones that count. As the writer in the book of Proverbs recorded "there is nothing new under the sun!" (ref: climate, history, Gore)